


nightmares

by happyrobins



Series: baby!Damian AU [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Baby!Damian AU, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1555664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyrobins/pseuds/happyrobins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce isn’t usually home at night when Damian has nightmares. But, lucky for Damian, Alfred is always there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nightmares

The nightmares don’t happen frequently, but when they do happen, they’re terrible. Damian’s only three, but he knows his father and older brother put themselves in danger at night, even if he doesn’t understand much else about their mission. He’s seen them hurt before, really hurt, and those memories and worries haunt his dreams some nights.

Sniffling quietly, Damian curls up in his bed and watches the miniature Batsignal glow on the wall, projected from his nightlight, and tries to take comfort in it. But it’s not enough. He doesn’t want to be alone, not tonight.

Damian wriggles out from underneath the covers and slides off his bed, sneaking out of his bedroom on short, chubby legs. The hallways are quiet, empty, and dark. He’s not scared of the dark—never has been—but the moonlight coming in from the windows warps the portraits on the walls in an eerie way, the faces glowing silver and ghost-like, watching. Avoiding their gazes, he hurries to his father’s room in his footie pajamas.

The room is empty when he pushes the door open. The giant bed is still made neatly from that morning. His father isn’t home from patrol yet. Sometimes he is, and sometimes he isn’t. Damian lets out a despairing, sniffling hiccup. He really wanted tonight to be one of the first kind.

He tries to climb up onto the bed. It’s too tall, so he has to grab the side of the blanket hanging down and pull himself up that way. The fabric’s silky and slippery and slides through his fingers. He falls down, landing on his bottom on the hardwood floor.

It’s cold near the floor and for a few moments Damian sits there, sniffling and shivering, until Alfred finds him—because he always finds him, he always seems to know—and picks him up in his arms.

Alfred knows exactly what to do. They’ve been through this before. He takes the upset toddler to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk, and then, once Damian’s whimpers change into sleepy yawns, Alfred carries him back to Bruce’s room and tucks him into the big, soft bed along with his stuffed animals— _all_  of his stuffed animals, and he has a lot of them. Altogether they do a pretty good job of filling the huge bed.

Once Damian and his animal friends are are settled in so that none will have to feel left out or lonely, Alfred pulls up a chair beside the bed and begins to tell him a story. He doesn’t tell stories like Dick, he doesn’t need to read from a book. He knows it all by heart. A lot of the words are too big for Damian to understand and the sentences are put together funny, in a way he’s not used to hearing, but it sounds nice and it’s soothing.

Damian dozes, and is woken up much later by his father fondly smoothing his hair from his face. He says something Damian’s too sleepy to hear.

Damian curls up tighter underneath the blankets and clutches his pillow, making it clear that he won’t be moved back to his own bed. He’s sleeping here tonight.

His father sighs, though he doesn’t sound annoyed at all, and he gently rearranges the menagerie of stuffed animals, pushing aside a turtle, a fluffy tiger, and a large elephant to make room for himself.

Bruce wasn’t hurt tonight, so there are no bandages to mind as Damian snuggles close against his chest. Damian doesn’t remember much of his nightmare anymore, only that his father and Dick were in danger. But they’re home now, they’re safe, and he falls asleep glad that he gets to stay here, close to his father, where the bad dreams can’t find him.

And, of course, the stuffed animals get to stay, too.

 

—

 

Damian’s five when he starts having nightmares again. Bad ones, worse than any he’s had before. Jason is gone, and Damian’s learned that monsters aren’t imaginary anymore. They’re real, and they’re out there. But he’s a big boy now, too old and too proud to need help.

His eyes fly open and he lets out a quiet, choked sob as he wakes up from the worst part of the nightmare, just as the dream creature was about to devour him and his family with sharp, snapping teeth. For a few seconds after he wakes, the laughing shadows of the monsters seem to linger in the corners of his dark room, and he pulls his blankets tighter around him in fear. He doesn’t have a nightlight anymore. It burnt out months ago and he said he didn’t want a new one. He said that he wasn’t a baby.

Damian steels himself and gets out of bed. Unafraid, he glares at the shadows. He knows there’s nothing to be scared of here.

He has a secret hiding spot in the back of his closet, in a box of old building blocks. He digs around inside it—quietly as he can—until he finds what he’s looking for.

It’s one of Jason’s old capes, one that Damian found wadded up in Jason’s room after the accident. He only takes it out when he misses him the most.

He wraps the bright yellow fabric around his shoulders. It still has a faint hint of that strange smell that reminds him of Jason, that smell that always tickles his nose—it’s cigarette smoke, but he doesn’t know that. He just knows that it makes him feel safer. Braver.

The cape’s much too long for him. It pools at his feet and drags along the dark, shiny floors as he walks down the hallways, headed towards the kitchen to get himself a glass of milk. He’s old enough to do it himself now, even if he still has to climb up on the countertop to reach the high cupboards with the glasses.

Opening the fridge is no problem, but the milk jug is full and heavy, difficult for him to lift. He manages to get it in his arms, and as he takes a step with it he starts to lose his balance, teetering unsteadily to the side.

Someone hurries over and steadies him before he can fall, taking the jug of milk from him and setting it on the countertop. Damian looks up through his teary eyes and sees Alfred frowning down at him in concern.

Alfred looks sad as he takes in the sight of Damian wearing Jason’s too-big cape, and how the boy’s blue eyes are wet with tears. Without a word, Alfred kneels down and pulls him into a much-needed hug. Dick always says that Alfred’s hugs are the most special kind, and right now Damian is inclined to agree.

“Nightmares are nothing to be ashamed of, Master Damian,” Alfred tells him. “Especially not in this house. We all have them, even your father.”

“Even you?”

He smiles. “Yes. I do, as well,” he says. “Now… would you like a snack, perhaps? Or are you simply thirsty?”

Alfred is tucking Damian snugly into bed later, and the boy is still wrapped up in Jason’s old cape under the blankets. The cape is more comforting than any security blanket, and it becomes a new habit for Damian to cocoon himself in it whenever he has a particularly bad nightmare, before he goes to seek out Alfred.


End file.
